This is our seventh Lord's Day in quarantine. Seven weeks of no public worship, seven weeks without the Lord's table, and seven weeks without the ability to gather together with the saints. And while, for the most part, I have sensed patience with the congregation, there was a clear shift this week, and for obvious reasons. This week, our governor seemed to imply that churches were so non-essential that even after childcare, schools, restaurants, and retail reopened, places of worship would not reopen. And with that announcement, he closed by letting us know that when phase three, the phase that includes the opening of public worship, would be months and not weeks away. It is no surprise then that the nature of my correspondence this week with some of you changed. Questions of what now? or how long do we wait? Is this right? All of these sorts of questions came to the fore. Questions about civil disobedience or reaching out to other government officials for relief and times of proper protest were all asked. Be assured that the elders and I will be meeting this week to discuss the best path forward during this time. But in the meantime, I would like to encourage us with this psalm that is before us to seek help where it is most properly found. Before any talk of what we might do, I would like to talk to you about what you must do, and that is found in our psalm, Psalm 123 this morning. The first thing I would like us to see from this psalm is problems in the upside down. I'm sure many of you have watched and are fans of Stranger Things. In that series, the world that causes fear is called the Upside Down. The Upside Down is this alternate dimension that seems to be a strange reflection of this world, but inhabited by frightening creatures and the like. Well, we experience something similar in our text today in two ways. First, the psalm itself is upside down. I mean, did you notice it? The psalmist makes his plea to God first, and he makes his complaint last. Normally you would hear, much like you hear at home with your children, I'm sure, You hear the problem first, and then you hear the plea. Mom, Tommy's staring at me again. Will you please make him stop? Notice, problem first, then the request. The psalm itself is upside down. Did you notice it? The psalmist makes his plea to God first and he makes his complaint last. Normally you would hear, like you hear in your home life with your own children I'm sure, the problem first and then the plea. You know, Mom, Tommy's looking at me again, please make him stop. Notice problem and then the plea. But our psalm is upside down. We get the petition, the request for help, have mercy on us, but we don't even know what the problem is until the conclusion of the psalm. We've had more than enough of contempt. In the literary arrangement of the psalm, we also get a revelation. Not only is the psalm seemingly disordered, the world itself is. These people, who according to this very psalm belong to the Lord who sits on the throne of heaven, are held in contempt on earth. That seems upside down, doesn't it? I mean, God is your God. Everything is His. He sits at the levers controlling the whole thing. But everyone around seems to treat His people with contempt and scorn. In the eyes of the world, they are unimportant, silly, dare I say non-essential. And this twisted reality has God's people twisted. They're tired of it, literally weary of being treated this way by the outside world. So what do they do? What should they do? I mean, that is the question, isn't it? Well, the second thing we see in our psalm is that prayer is seeing things right side up. You see, the one benefit of living in trying times is that they can jolt us enough to see what is always, in fact, true. This world is upside down. God, in his mercy, brings us through things that remind us of our need for help. Notice the language of the text. God's servants can only look up. His eyes, if you will, are his only tool, meaning he has no resource. He can't lift a finger. He can only lift his head up and look around for who can help. And his gaze floats upward. And he looks up to a God whose tool is his hand. Literarily, the hand is a source of power and action. The psalmist compares himself to a servant who can only look around for help, but he compares God to a master with a strong hand, one who can take action, get stuff done. God's hand is not short that it cannot save. So we look in need and God acts in power. They're total opposites. This is the strange blessing of trouble. In trouble, by God's grace, we remember who we are. We remember what strength we actually have and what strength God has. This psalm, as Calvin notes, makes one thing plain, that without the protection of God, true believers have no comfort, are disarmed, and exposed to all manner of wrongs. They have no strength to resist, entirely dependent on aid from another. The comparison in the psalm is the ancient slave to the master. I mean, what could the slave do if the outside world ridiculed, mistreated, and withheld from him? What right and strength did he have to defend himself or fight for his own rights and honor? Absolutely none. He had to look to his master and hope that as he looked, he would find help. So my genuine question to you, as God's people is, have you looked to God for help? Have you cried out to him? In your outrage and frustration and your concern for your rights, have you cried out to the one who both gives and secures all those things? Have you invested your energies there? Before getting on social media and venting, before complaining, before prognosticating, before talk of protest, civil disobedience, or even appeals to lesser magistrates, have we looked to the one who sits enthroned in heaven? These other things very well may be in order if this persists, but they are not first-order actions. And the reason is that even those things are only effective if God makes them so by blessing them. I mean, think of this quarantine so far. Think of how many things have been said and then changed afterward. May our first response to this news of the week not be fear or panic or anger or even strategizing, but may our first response be to turn to the one who has the king's heart in his hand and who has the power to turn it wherever he wants and to ask him for help. This psalm teaches us that at times God purposely strips us of all worldly aid so that we may learn to rely upon Him and to look to Him. And what do we see when we look? Our final point is grace, the only path to the right side up. When we look up to our King, we find what we don't find when we look around to the outside world, namely grace. The cry of the psalm is simple. Three times it is repeated, have mercy on us. For those of you who've been joining us in our Wednesday night prayer meeting that we've been holding during quarantine, you've heard at the close of those meetings a prayer that sounds a lot like this. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. While some people hear language like that and it spooks them or they feel like it sounds rude or maybe too churchy, one should note that it comes from psalms just like this one, where the psalmist three times repeats a desire for mercy. I mean, at the end of the day, our whole prayer life can be summed up in this simple cry, Lord have mercy upon me. All prayer is a cry to the one who is able to show kindness to those who are in need. Again, in the imagery of the psalm, when a master sees his defenseless servants being treated without mercy, will not he who has the power and hears their cry come to their aid? Well, I guess it depends on the master, doesn't it? But this master has obligated himself to defend and glorify his church. You see, the claim of the psalmist is that God is enthroned in heaven. But the comfort of the psalmist is that the God enthroned in heaven is for him. Our eyes look to Yahweh, our God. And that is our comfort, dear church. When we look up, we don't just see God the all-powerful. We see God as revealed most clearly by his beloved Son, the all-gracious One who rules everything at present for the sake of the Church. As Paul teaches in Ephesians chapter one, he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church. which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. That means that everything that is happening right now somehow is being so ordered for the blessing, growth, and prosperity of the church of our Lord that He bought with His own blood. Whether we can see or understand it, that is Christ our King's duty. It's his obligation to rule for us. He is sworn to it in his own blood. And our duty is to look up and to cry out until God comes to our aid. And what we see when we look up is a risen Savior at the right hand of the Father who ever lives to intercede for us. What we find when we seek our Master is grace upon grace. Therefore, let us seek Him today, knowing that He ever lives to intercede for us and we can find mercy and help as we approach Him in our time of need. Now, to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.